International Journal of Cultural

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Literary tourism: Constructions of value, celebrity and distinction

Benjamin Earl
International Journal of Cultural Studies 2008; 11; 401
DOI: 10.1177/1367877908096003

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 ARTICLE

INTERNATIONAL
journal of
CULTURAL studies
Copyright © 2008 SAGE Publications
Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore
www.sagepublications.com
Volume 11(4): 401–417
DOI: 10.1177/1367877908096003

Literary tourism
Constructions of value, celebrity and distinction

● Benjamin Earl
University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, Wales

ABSTRACT ●Tourism and cultural geography have often made much of

how visitors use and appropriate tourist sites as a means of cultural identity and
distinction. This article looks at how, in a globalized world where access to such
once high-cultural geographic sites becomes more democratized, certain tourist
groups have to resort to alternative strategies in order to maintain their high-
cultural requirements for the touristic experience. The article presents an
account of how one particular tourist party utilized the cultural value of
authorship to legitimate and authenticate their experience. Drawing on
Bourdieu, Benjamin and Althusser, this article examines how a series of lectures
by authors is commissioned by the group leader to create a sense of aura,
distinction and uniqueness around the geographical tourist sites themselves. ●

KEYWORDS ● authorship ● Bourdieu ● cultural capital ● cultural

distinction ● cultural fields ● heritage ● myth ● tourism

This is an article about cultural authority and Arthurian place, where much of
the analysis is set against a background of the key Arthurian tourist sites of
Tintagel and Cadbury castles. More specifically, I analyse how a particular
tourist group appropriates cultural authority in order to maintain their own
distinction. Tintagel Castle holds a particularly significant place in the
Arthurian myth. Certain readings of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the
Kings of Britain suggest the site as Arthur’s birthplace (see Thomas, 1993: 15).
It is probably for that very reason that the castle was built by Richard, Earl of
Cornwall (c. 1230–40), possibly to capitalize on the popularity of Geoffrey’s
book and lend authority to his own power (see Creighton, 2002: 72).

401
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402 I N T E R N AT I O N A L journal of C U LT U R A L studies 11(4)

Meanwhile, Tintagel’s popular resonance with the Arthurian myth is

shown in the number of people visiting; estimates suggest that 600,000
people visit Tintagel as a whole (i.e. the village and/or castle) during the year.
As the notion of the ‘tourist’ became prevalent in Victorian times (cf. Urry,
1995: 130), and the railway system opened up transportation to classes hith-
erto denied the opportunity to travel, so Tintagel became a favourite destina-
tion for holiday makers (cf. Hale, 2001: 160), coinciding with the renaissance
in the Arthurian myth’s appeal, headed by Tennyson.
This article is set against a background of my general research project, that
had seen me interviewing visitors to the castle to find out (as expressed in the
most basic terms) ‘why they were there’ – especially important as much
research on tourism fails to offer empirical evidence to back up its claims (see
Rojek, 1997: 62). I used pseudonyms in all cases and the interviews were
semi-structured in form. Using qualitative interviews enabled me to ascertain
‘the dynamic nature of cultural and social processes and of meaning produc-
tion’ (Gray, 2003: 18), and therefore enabled the results to show the ‘com-
plex ways in which individuals, or agents, or subjects, inhabit their specific
formations, identities and subjectivities’ (2003: 18).
As a result, I was able to show how Tintagel Castle’s remains were used
by visitors to maintain their cultural distinction and assert their cultural cap-
ital. Visiting the site enabled people to reaffirm their cultural difference in a
time when generic images associated with the myth are readily accessible.
Moreover, the connection the castle has with high-cultural literary texts such
as those by Geoffrey of Monmouth or Tennyson allowed the correlation
between site and castle to appear as ‘authentic’, especially when compared to
the village that, with no recourse to the authority of either its date of con-
struction or, indeed, its links with high-cultural literary texts, was seen as
‘cheap’ and ‘tacky’ in contrast.
It must be noted at this stage, that the very act of interviewing the visitors
and expecting them to voice their opinions risked disrupting their experience,
suggesting that accessing ‘their own words’ would never be entirely possible
(cf. Hills, 2002: 66). Furthermore, there was the risk that their being inter-
viewed would result in their discourse attempting to cater for my status as an
academic. This might have the consequence that my interviews would mask
opinions that might be voiced to people with less perceived Arthurian cultural
capital than myself. However, even if this is the case, this process in itself can
tell us much about the cultural value of the Arthurian myth and demonstrates
how it can work as a form of distinction, as knowledge of the myth is neces-
sary to show good taste and education.
The week after I concluded my initial research, an opportunity arose to
meet a group with subtle differences from the people I had just finished inter-
viewing. A post on the Arthurnet discussion list from one Daisy Beth Smith
prompted me to contact her to ask if she minded me interviewing her tourist
party when they visited Tintagel. Daisy Beth Smith’s Book Excursions liter-
ary tour, ‘The Magic of Myth’1 took in a combination of ‘Arthurian’ sites

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 Earl ● Literary tourism 403

such as Glastonbury, Tintagel and Cadbury Castle, but with a difference: the
tour would include lectures and talks by noted Arthurian authors such as
Geoffrey Ashe and Michael Morpurgo.
Arthurnet is an academic discussion list, sponsored by the journal
Arthuriana, which offers an introductory bibliography on the mailing list’s
home page. Therefore, it should have come as no surprise to me that this
group should seek to appropriate the cultural capital that I supposedly
brought. This tourist group, after all, was a group with more capital than the
‘everyday’ visitor to Tintagel that I was to encounter prior to meeting Daisy
Beth Smith’s group. The very act of asking the likes of Ashe and Morpurgo
to speak to them signalled their membership of a cultivated class, preferring
the words of a ‘knowledgeable expert’ to those of a guidebook (cf. Bourdieu
and Darbel, 1991: 52). Likewise the duration of the holiday (two weeks); dis-
tance travelled (from the US); and their choice of expensive hotels immedi-
ately suggested that their ability to spend so much time and money on such a
visit marked the group out as belonging to a higher social stratum than those
day trippers who visited Tintagel from the UK (cf. Rojek, 2005: 148).
Furthermore, the group had an unusually high level of cultural capital.
Every member was female, retired, and most of them had ‘literary’ back-
grounds, having either worked in academia, teaching or as librarians. Many
of their children had gone on to postgraduate education. Clearly, to fit easily
into this taste-culture, an appreciation of the high-cultural values of ‘litera-
ture’ was necessary. It is in certain class interests to maintain the value of
literature. Consumption of literature is in itself a marker of class (cf.
Baudrillard, 1997: 59), and this is furthered by Bourdieu’s assertion that ‘of
all the objects offered for consumer’s choice, there are none more classifying
than legitimate works of art’ (1984: 103). The group’s level of education
meant their disposition was towards a cultivated taste, one that favoured the
aesthetic of canonical literature over and above more popular forms of taste,
such as films. Yet their taste also betrayed the class of the group in itself.
Desire to appropriate the literary background of the myth suggested that this
group ‘is associated with refined values of discernment, respect and taste.
Travel is seen as pursuing the ageless aristocratic principle of broadening the
mind’ (Rojek, 1993: 175). The disposition to consume such literary works
can only be appropriated as cultural value by those with sufficient class sta-
tus and cultural capital that they are able to appreciate the meaning of canon-
ical texts such as Tennyson’s Idylls of the King (cf. Bourdieu, 1993: 220).
The importance of class background in asserting a ‘naturally cultivated
nature’ (Bourdieu, 1993: 236) distinct from the working class was drawn
into perspective when I spoke to one member who did not fit the demo-
graphic of the majority of the group. It soon became clear that she felt
uncomfortable speaking to me owing to the fact that her tastes did not fit
with the high-cultural capital that was expected of this group. When asked
about her view of the tour, I was told: ‘I don’t know. I might not be a very
good choice …’ This related to her reading, which was considered by her to

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404 I N T E R N AT I O N A L journal of C U LT U R A L studies 11(4)

be ‘Nothing real literary’, which was in great contrast to the rest of the com-
munity. Clearly, to fit easily into this taste-culture, an appreciation of the
high-cultural values of ‘literature’ was necessary.
What soon became apparent was that, despite the day involving a visit to
Tintagel, this group did not derive their cultural value from the site itself,
unlike the visitors I had met the previous week. The Book Excursions group
required further strategies to distinguish themselves from these ‘everyday’
tourists. Of the day I spent with them, only three hours were spent in
Tintagel, and this time included an hour’s lecture by myself. The rest of the
morning involved a swift tour around King Arthur’s Great Halls and the
castle, and some chose to spend their remaining time at Tintagel, speaking to
me in the course of my research. The afternoon (from 12:00 to about 5:30)
was spent visiting the former Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo.
Consequently, this article looks at how this group further distinguished itself
from the ‘everyday’ by appropriating the cultural value of authorship as
embodied in myself, Geoffrey Ashe and Michael Morpurgo.

Researcher becomes researched? My integration into the

group

It must be noted that it was not me personally that was necessary for the
group to function, but my status as academic that legitimated the commu-
nity’s taste culture. Indeed, my status as cultural authority was relatively low
compared to that of the other speakers they met. Nonetheless, my co-option
into the group made for some interesting methodological issues, which I
would like to discuss here.
Although fieldwork can at times ‘naturalize and essentialize social differ-
ence and experience’ (Katz, 1996: 181), it can also naturalize similarity, and
it is necessary to be self-reflexive to analyse my own participation. Margery
Wolf argues that ‘no matter how careful, I fear all of us who do research must
be prepared to be the resented other to the “objects” of our study’ (1992: 13).
Although this may very well be true in some settings, it does not take into
account how, rather than assuming a prior difference from the research
subject, there are also times when the researcher’s status may be appropriated
by the very group they intend to analyse.
Indeed, the advertising blurb for the tour put in place inter-textual frames
of reference that organized and predisposed potential holiday makers to see
the tour in a certain way (cf. Bennett and Woollacott, 1987: 43–4; Storey,
1999: 71), and thus positioned the expected cultural capital of the average
visitor as unusually well-endowed, focusing as it does on an appreciation of
‘literature’ as opposed to more commodified forms of entertainment (cf.
Bourdieu, 1984: 103). Indeed, the ‘fascinating people to meet’ are the likes of
Geoffrey Ashe and Michael Morpurgo, people with relatively high levels of
symbolic capital:

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 Earl ● Literary tourism 405

Book Excursions tours, led by Daisy Beth Smith, provide one-of-a-kind

travel experiences with companions who love to read.

Those who have traveled with Book Excursions know the qualities that set
these tours apart. Her high standards in choosing wonderful places to visit
and fascinating people to meet … make each tour memorable.
Not the least of the pleasures of Book Excursions is the camaraderie with
others who love books.

It was in this respect that I found that my fieldwork was anything but a
passive activity. Indeed, I soon discovered that ‘the fieldwork self is
always, to some extent, shaped by the cultural context and social rela-
tions of the field’ (Coffey, 1999: 30). Instead of me asking questions of
the group and observing how it functioned, I became one of the ‘fasci-
nating people to meet’. Amanda Coffey presents a perceptive account of
how it is necessary to be self-reflexive about the researcher’s role during
fieldwork. She discusses how there is often ‘a lack of critical engagement
with the ways in which ethnographers connect, relate, engage and have
impacts on the field and other people … fieldwork relies upon the inter-
actions, relations and situatedness of the researcher and the researched’
(1999: 7), while also pointing out that a traditional ethnographic
approach ‘does not address, in any detail, how fieldwork shapes and con-
structs identities, intimate relations, an emotional self and physical self’
(1999: 5).
Rather than experiencing ‘the potential alienation and isolation of
remaining on the edge of culture’ (Coffey, 1999: 5), I was incorporated into
this particular taste-culture as the community used me as a form of distinc-
tion. Instead of playing a passive role on the margins of the group, I ended
up integrated into it as I was asked to give them a lecture in return for
access. This, obviously, skewed my relationship with the group. However,
the relationship offered me an opportunity to demonstrate how, instead of
thinking of the researcher as objective ‘other’ to a foreign culture, it is pos-
sible that ‘fieldwork can be recast as a process where the self is central’
(Coffey, 1999: 24). Analysis of my relationship with the group allows us to
see how the power relations between researcher and the object of the
research were constructed (cf. Scourfield and Coffey, 2006: 29), and this in
itself allows an analysis of how this particular subcultural field operates and
functions.
The importance of my own cultural positioning as academic was seen on
my arrival at Tintagel. When I met the Book Excursions tour outside King
Arthur’s Great Halls, Daisy Beth announced that their expert had arrived. I
was now owned by the group, a possession for them to display. The language
used also closed off ownership to the group alone. However, although owner-
ship of my capital was now transferred to the group, it was necessary to accen-

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406 I N T E R N AT I O N A L journal of C U LT U R A L studies 11(4)

tuate my cultural value. Althusser’s concept of ‘interpellation’ (2001: 123) is

useful in seeing how being named with the title ‘expert’, I was recruited into a
particular identity that was of use to the group (cf. Bailey, 1994: 146).
This title of ‘expert’ also shows that the academy is ‘one of the prime sym-
bols and disseminators of cultural capital in capitalist societies’ (Moran,
2000: 45), and, when giving my talk, I was asked to sit on Arthur’s throne in
the great hall. In fact, although I appeared to give my talk freely, by so doing
I willingly accepted my subjection (Althusser, 2001: 123) and actually
allowed my cultural capital to be appropriated by the group. Being sat on
Arthur’s throne in itself served a double purpose. By linking me specifically
to the figure of Arthur, the mythical king’s ability to dispense wisdom author-
itatively (cf. Malory, 1969[1485]: 6) was naturalized in me also. However,
this was a two-way process, as my role as ‘expert’ was used to authenticate
the Arthurian myth itself. That it was important to position my role in a cer-
tain way was seen at the end of the day, when I was taken aside and out of
view of the group to be paid my fee. If this were seen by the group, it would
threaten my symbolic capital that the group chose to invest in, as their desired
high-cultural aesthetic ‘excludes the pursuit of profit’ (Bourdieu, 1993: 39).
To seemingly disavow the economic capital available to me allowed for my
prestige to be raised as a result (cf. Bourdieu, 1993: 75). Proof that control of
my capital had passed from me to the group was shown when I asked one
member of the group about the importance of guides:

F: I would not do it by myself. I wouldn’t have found out enough

things. Daisy Beth spends incredible amounts of time to get the
schedule so she can fit things in, and meet the right people, and she
was I think quite delighted when she heard from you.
BE: Really?!?
F: Well yes. She needed a speaker, that you actually have something
that is so ‘right’ for this … giving a different view.

Instead of me being the one who contacted the group for interviews, the power
relations had changed so it was presented as the tour operator’s choice to let
me into the group. I had passed some kind of cultural entry test and had been
deemed to be ‘right’ and ‘appropriate’ to further this group’s own quest for
cultural distinction. Beverley Skeggs discusses how ‘the techniques of telling
also rely on accruing the stories of others in order to make them into property
for oneself’ (2002: 349). Clearly, this was my intention in attempting to inter-
view the group. However, showing how fieldwork is often dynamic and ever-
changing, it was my story that was accrued by the group. Moreover, by
accepting the role of ‘expert’, I had recognized and accepted that I fitted into
the role chosen for me by the group (cf. Althusser, 2001: 121).
One of the consequences of my talk was that, after openly positioning myself
as being endowed with a certain type of symbolic capital, the tourists were keen
to push me on to those in their group who had most cultural capital. They told

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 Earl ● Literary tourism 407

me to speak to those who ‘read a lot’ or who ‘knew a lot about books’. In one
instance it was suggested that I talk to a member of the group who worked as
a professional storyteller. This showed ‘the researcher’s often necessary rela-
tionship with access providers who may have control over other research sub-
jects’ (Lal, 1996: 193). These people were presented as ‘the right people to
speak to’ and would give me ‘what I wanted’. Furthermore, the act of record-
ing and transcribing my interviews with the group served to draw attention to
myself as academic, and thus risked my interviewees adopting a discursive
frame more in keeping with their expectations of what I, as a ‘serious’ acade-
mic, expected from them. However, this did not automatically invalidate my
research. What we see here is ‘a process of delegation, in which the representa-
tive receives from the group the power of creating the group’ (Bourdieu, 1991:
248). Despite some of the group being keen to discuss the different backgrounds
of its members, and their differing reasons for coming on the trip, it was also
emphasized by many how they had come on the trip to find ‘like-minded
people’. In this way, ‘the group can exist only by delegating power to a
spokesperson who will bring it into existence by speaking for it, that is, on
behalf and in its place’ (Bourdieu, 1991: 249). These people were chosen to be
representative of the tourist party as a whole, and exemplified how the com-
munity wished to present itself to me. It was important that the emphasis was
on the literary creation of Arthur, and before my talk the tour leader asked for
those with something that might be important for me to hear ‘to make them-
selves available’ to me. The group became homogenized by this process of del-
egation, seen in the comment made by one woman that it was preferable that
‘we don’t butt in’ (my emphasis) during my talk. In this instance, she used a col-
lective discourse, where she presented her experience as shared by the social
group as a whole (cf. Van Dijk, 1998). By so doing, the group recognized and
verified my status as ‘expert’, allowing for my symbolic capital to be dissemi-
nated through my talk.
When waiting for their bus to come and take them elsewhere, many of the
party asked me about my PhD, how long it would take to finish, what it was
about and what other people were doing similar work in the academic field.
The desire to raise my cultural standing was particularly apparent in the com-
ment of one that ‘When you’re famous, and we hear of “Benjamin Earl”, we
can say we heard his talk.’ What this encounter exposes is ‘the myth that
social research can ever be neutral or hygienic’ (Coffey, 1999: 12). If research
ever appears to be neutral, this can be seen as a mythic act where the research
is naturalized as objective (cf. Barthes, 2000: 129). When encountering sub-
jects such as the Arthurian myth, it is necessary to study the discourses sur-
rounding such myths, and to look at how they function: ‘not only in terms of
their expressive value or formal transformations, but according to their modes
of existence. The modes of circulation, valorization, attribution and appropria-
tion of discourses vary within each culture and are modified within each’
(Foucault, 1991: 117). In the case of Daisy Beth Smith’s tourist group, the myth
naturalizes who holds the status of privileged interpreter of the stories. It shows

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408 I N T E R N AT I O N A L journal of C U LT U R A L studies 11(4)

how my status as academic was not something that should allow me to con-
struct the group as ‘Other’ and allow me to review how they functioned
objectively. Rather, my status as academic and privileged interpreter was nec-
essary for the group to function and to naturalize their own status and cul-
tural capital. It was not solely the authenticity of Tintagel the group wished
to appropriate but, rather, the authenticity of me as cultural authority that
allowed the place to be authenticated.

The author functioning as cultural authority

Yet I was not the only cultural authority the group appropriated during their
holiday. As mentioned in the advertising blurb, this was a tour for people
who ‘love books’. Previous tours had seen the group spoken to and lectured
to by the likes of Alan Garner. This tour would see such luminaries as
Geoffrey Ashe and Michael Morpurgo act as tour guides and speakers.
Showing how this holiday would employ strategies to distinguish it as over
and above that experienced by the ‘everyday’ tourist, the guide confided in me
that she thought people were not interested in merely going to ‘traditional’
high-cultural leisure sites such as museums. To satisfy this taste culture, their
version of the past was created not just by visiting the geographical sites them-
selves, but by being provided with lectures as the group ‘want to learn things
while they’re there … and these people love it’ (Daisy Beth). The fact that
authorship was considered to be their main source of symbolic capital was
shown when I asked one of the group, Moira, for her impression of Tintagel:

M: Err, it’s an extremely good book and gift shop … we’ve been in a
number of them all along our trip, and this one just sent me right
through the roof (laughs). I love it, you saw my pile.

Given the choice of Tintagel Castle, with its spectacular setting and rich
history (both real and mythical), or King Arthur’s Halls, with its imposing
spaces, statuesque suits of armour and complex colourful stained glass,
Moira decided the most important place she had visited, and the one wor-
thy of discussion, was the bookshop in the latter site. Although she had
indeed mentioned the existence of a gift shop too, the fact that as I spoke
to her she made reference to the large number of books she had bought
showed her ‘literary’ leanings. Indeed, her presents, or ‘gifts’ to her friends
on her return home were to be copies of ‘classic’ literary texts.
In this respect, it is useful to look at Foucault’s concept of the ‘author
function’: ‘The author provides the basis for explaining not only the pres-
ence of certain events in a work, but also their transformations, distortions,
and diverse modifications’ (1991: 111). The author function enables the
audience to group texts together, and use the figure of the author as a sign
of value. Moreover, the author function can also signify distinction with

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 Earl ● Literary tourism 409

regard to cultural ownership of texts. This ownership can, of course, be

related to the traditional idea of the author possessing control and mastery
over the creation of his own text, but can also be related to how readers of
the text own and possess the cultural value constructed by the means of the
author function, and so appropriate it as a signifier of quality.
Roland Barthes in particular is scathing in his criticism of authorial value
(see 1977: 142–8). To limit oneself solely to an analysis along the lines where
the authorial intention is the main form of discerning the ‘truth’ of the book
denies these texts the ability to live without their author, it closes off the pos-
sibility of other readings and suggests the certainty of one, ‘correct’ reading.
However, although Barthes’ notion of empowering the reader offers many
welcome openings for innovative and exciting readings of texts, it is unnec-
essary that, as a consequence, the notion of the author has to be removed in
its entirety, and there are times when the author can be central to the under-
standing of how certain groups maintain their cultural distinction. The author
can be thought of as ‘a functional and ideological figure which throws new
light over the functioning of literary discourse, and disciplines the indiscrim-
inate and dangerous proliferation of meaning’ (Cazzato, 1995: 33–4). The
re-establishment of the author allows us to see why certain groups’ distinc-
tion is constructed around discourses of authorship, and shows how it is the
cultural value of the author that is appropriated for distinction.
In the case of this tourist group, the cultural value associated with the author
function was of great importance to them. As Joe Moran discusses in relation to
his review of authorial celebrity in the 20th century, the lecture circuit is one way
in which authorial value is constructed (2000: 17), and the talks by noted
authors certainly had an effect on this group. If ‘celebrities have filled the absence
created by the decay in the popular belief in the divine right of kings’ (Rojek,
2001: 13), then an Author-God (Barthes, 1977: 146) as this group’s celebrity
appears an apt substitution. Although Loren Glass suggests that literary celebrity
‘no longer commands the cultural authority it did in the modern era, and it never
will again’ (2004: 200), this does not take into account how, although this might
be the case for those in the field of large-scale production, for those cultures and
subcultures occupying the restricted field, traditional notions of authorship and
authorial value still hold sway. An author with sufficient status to have ‘the
power to consecrate’ (Bourdieu, 1993: 77) was necessary to legitimate this
group’s holiday and provide a means of cultural distinction denied to most of the
visitors to Tintagel and the other geographical sites visited.
Earlier in their holiday, this group had toured Cadbury Castle where
Geoffrey Ashe, renowned Arthurian writer and speaker, had spoken to them
on his theories about the site and its uses. Ashe himself occupies a curious,
liminal space. He is neither ‘pure’ academic nor, despite his commercial suc-
cess, does he fit easily into the role of ‘popular’ writer. Indeed, he followed
Glass’s conception of ‘the mode of literary celebrity that enabled … authors
… to straddle elite and mainstream audiences’ (2004: 17). Moreover, his is
the name that is most associated with Arthurian authorial celebrity. Ashe’s

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reputation was made with his book King Arthur’s Avalon (1957), which both
coincided with and contributed to a resurgence of interest in Glastonbury (see
Hutton, 2003: 50).
Although now positioned on the margins of the academic field (cf.
Bourdieu, 1993: 131), it is still necessary to acknowledge that Ashe’s edited
collection The Quest for Arthur’s Britain (1968) linking Cadbury Castle to
the site of Camelot still carries much popular weight. While his theories have
now been largely discredited in academic circles (see Dumville, 1977; Hutton,
2003: 52–3; Thomas, 1969), Ashe’s status as author and master storyteller is
still considerable, and this is acknowledged by Hutton, who describes King
Arthur’s Avalon as written in ‘exciting and beautiful prose’ (2003: 66). It was
clear that the ability of Ashe to authenticate place for this group was just as
valid as it had been for many of those who had visited Glastonbury in earlier
decades. It was Ashe’s ability to tell a story, and his rhetorical skills that
allowed them to believe Cadbury Castle could have been the site of Camelot,
and Cadbury was in turn authenticated by his authorial persona. Despite
mainstream success, celebrity authors ‘are also perceived as in some sense cul-
turally “authoritative”’ (Moran, 2000: 6) and in the case of Geoffrey Ashe, it
quickly becomes apparent that ‘“authorship” serve[s] as capital, stories of
value, hoarded assets available for use in the production of further value,
expertise and prestige’ (Jaffe, 2005: 10). Ashe’s status as tour guide can only
be authenticated by his prior literary success, and it is this literary value that
means his words hold value for the group.
Stephanie had initially seemed uninterested in my questions, but her
demeanour changed dramatically and she became suddenly enthusiastic when
conversation turned to Geoffrey Ashe:
OK, he’s elderly, but he’s a large man, and he erm, I don’t want to say that
he dithered, because he did not dither. But he would just tell us things and
it would come to life. You know, we’d stand up by Glastonbury and he’d
be talking about you know, the … he’s a very good storyteller.
It was important for her to describe his physical appearance as this was
something not discernible from his writing, and served to personalize and
individualize his work, making her appropriation of his authorial status
appear to be more individual, and more distinct, than that usually offered
through his texts. By embodying the author, Stephanie is able to establish a
division ‘between the ordinary and extraordinary’ (Urry, 2002: 12) owing
to her viewing of the ‘unique object’ (2002: 12), that is the author’s physi-
cal appearance. Meanwhile, his physical description set him apart as almost
super-human and above his peers. Chris Rojek uses the term ‘staged
celebrity’, which ‘refers to the calculated technologies and strategies of per-
formance and self projection designed to achieve a status of monumentality
in public culture’ (2001: 121). Stephanie’s description of Ashe managed just
this effect. Ashe is portrayed here as wise, gigantic and magical as the site
‘comes to life’. This magical ability to make illusions real is brought out by

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another member of the tour, who said of Cadbury that ‘when we told
people we were going to Cadbury, they said “there’s nothing there” and
that made me realize it was all in our minds, what was there’ (my empha-
sis). His storytelling is almost shamanic in its power. Here is the author in
extremis, a figure who can be referred to as possessing ‘magic efficacy’
(Bourdieu, 1996: 290; see also Bourdieu, 1993: 169).
Authorship here was valued as necessary to authenticate place. Indeed, the
cultural value of storytelling was necessary to consecrate the geographical
sites as worthy of high-cultural status. Stories made the places visited ‘alive’,
while the enjoyment of the tour was enhanced by the lectures. Denise
reflected that the tour had been ‘especially fun because in both cases
[Cadbury/Camelot and Tintagel] we were going to sites that are fictional
places, but they have become real to us as well’ (my emphasis). In this respect,
the act of lecturing by authors re-invigorated both the aura of the place, and
the literary story itself. Whereas the literary text, although elevating the role
of the author by virtue of the text’s standardization and issues of copyright
(see Anderson, 1991; Eisenstein, 1979), can be argued to be nothing more
than a reproduction, standardized by the advent of print, the talk has a ‘pres-
ence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to
be’ (Benjamin, 2001: 50). Jack Zipes argues that oral tales ‘serve to unite the
people of a community’ (1979: 4), but also maintains that ‘the aura of the
folk tale was linked to a community of interests which has long since disinte-
grated in the Western world’ (1979: 5). However, this does not take into
account how, for some, an oral tale is used as a form of distinction, and that
‘since the later 1960s, in the affluent world, storytelling has followed other
vernacular arts into revival, mostly by middle-class and educated activists’
(Heywood, 2004: 49). A personal talk shifts emphasis away from mass media
and large-scale industry, and on to the individual, unique experience of the
teller as they construct the story in their own words (cf. Finnegan, 1997: 67).
This is combined with the author function to allow for a high-cultural act.
Although oral communication comes first, and has been devalued in com-
parison to the literary text, it is now the literary form which provides the
interpretive framework to ‘read’ the authorial lecture.
Consequently, while retaining the auratic qualities of the folk tale, the ‘pop-
ular’ nature of this oral form is marginalized by the attendant author function.
The talk itself is unique, and this is coupled with the mythical, spectacular
topographical setting, which allows the group to distance themselves from the
mundane everyday. In isolation, neither the talk nor the place is sufficient to
create a form of cultural distinction for this particular group, but combining
the two gives a powerful auratic experience. Not content with appropriating
one form of cultural capital, this group appropriates more. This particular
tourist party uses ‘a distinctive textual mark of authorship, a sanction for dis-
tinguishing a high literary product from the inflating signs of consumption’
(Jaffe, 2005: 1) for their cultural distinction, yet filtered through the unique
experience of a personal talk.

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412 I N T E R N AT I O N A L journal of C U LT U R A L studies 11(4)

From public to private: life on the farm with Michael

Morpurgo

Later in the day, I got to see how the construction of authorship was used to
legitimate an oral presentation, as we visited the farm of then Children’s
Laureate Michael Morpurgo at Iddesleigh, Devon. Morpurgo comes from an
unusually educated and ‘literary’ family (see Fox, 2004; McCarthy, 2004),
meaning he is well disposed towards the cultural ideal of ‘the representation
of culture as a kind of superior reality … and the ideology of free, disinter-
ested “creation” founded on the spontaneity of innate inspiration’ (Bourdieu,
1993: 114).
In addition to his family background, by this stage Morpurgo was also
Children’s Laureate and MBE. The title of Children’s Laureate allowed
Morpurgo ‘the legitimate point of view of the authorized spokesperson’
(Bourdieu, 1991: 239). He had also won the Whitbread prize in 1995, impor-
tant for both his commercial profile yet also an enhanced cultural authority
beyond that of mere sales (cf. Moran, 2000: 44). Titles and awards were impor-
tant to this group of visitors. When discussing The Hidden Treasure of Glaston
(2000 [1946]) by Eleanore M. Jewett with me, one of the group had justified
its status as worthy of discussion by the fact that it had won a literary prize.
Visiting Morpurgo’s farm, Nethercott House, allowed for a certain con-
struction of authorship that set the scene for his coming talk. This prior
encounter with the author, where the tourist party was allowed to peek into
Morpurgo’s private world, can be seen almost as a ‘trailer’, allowing for the
authorial persona to be enhanced and any potential negative connotation to
be marginalized. The afternoon began with a tour of the farm, which was
bought by Morpurgo to launch the Farms for City Children charity, which
started in 1976 (Fox, 2004: 66). Morpurgo’s charity work enables his fame
to be seen in a positive light, and this can be considered ‘a quest for an
authentic mediated identity, where being a celebrity is itself morally justified’
(Tolson, 2001: 456). Moreover, visiting his farm, with its attendant acres of
countryside, served to implicitly enhance the impression of ‘the myth of the
singular artist, the solitary genius’ (Jaffe, 2005: 94). Indeed, our visit to his
house saw us enter Morpurgo’s private world, and allowed the group to
‘reproduce a central premise of celebrity by satisfying our desire to know the
“reality” behind the legend’ (Moran, 2000: 63). The gesture of promoting lit-
erary consumption is not distinct from promoting a specific interpretation of
Morpurgo’s charity work (cf. Jaffe, 2005: 146).
The day finished as we gathered in the lounge, and listened to Morpurgo
read from his latest book, his translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
(2004). This prior spatial construction of Morpurgo’s cultural value served to
allow for his reading to be dissociated from popular culture. Instead the read-
ing ‘presented its own personality and unique experience’ (Finnegan, 1997:
81). The high-cultural setting was enhanced by Morpurgo’s brief talk prior to
the reading, where Morpurgo spoke for a moment about his previous

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 Earl ● Literary tourism 413

Arthurian book Arthur, High King of Britain (2002). When talking of the
book’s setting in the Isles of Scilly, Morpurgo showed a readiness to appro-
priate high-cultural sources and thus validate his own status. Citing
Tennyson, the great Poet Laureate and author of Idylls of the King (1983
[1888]), Morpurgo commented that ‘if it’s good enough for Tennyson, it’s
good enough for me’. To show that he was worthy of the higher-cultural sta-
tus bestowed on him, Morpurgo then spoke briefly about Sir Gawain …
showing the author’s more high-cultural and ‘pure’ leanings as he talked
about how he re-introduced elements of the Arthurian story, such as the
incest theme, which have been sanitized in many ‘populist’ interpretations.
By reading from his book of poetry, Morpurgo was able to give an almost
theatrical performance. His control of tone and register encouraged the listeners
to see the performance ‘as indicating the existence of a distinctive individual
“personality”’ (Cook, 2000: 64). One of the group went so far as to video
Morpurgo reading from his own book, showing their desire to appropriate this
‘unique’ performance. This was an extreme extension of their behaviour earlier
in the day, where a common characteristic of the group was a keenness to meet
the famous author, take his photo and have their photo taken with him. While
taking photographs of stars is a practice common to popular cultural fandom, in
this instance photography is used to capture the unique auratic experience of the
authorial talk. Although the practice of taking a photograph is the same as that
for a popular cultural icon, it is well worth pointing out that the choice of subject
for this group was not the more widely available and ‘populist’ images of
Tintagel Castle, for example, but an image restricted to a select invited few.
Indeed, Moran argues that photographing authors works in ways beyond
that seen in popular cultural fandom, and suggests that authors’ cultural
value is often maintained by this practice of photography, which results in
‘the elision of public and private spheres’ (Moran, 2000: 122). Some time
after my visit, I found it was not just Morpurgo who had been photographed
in this way, but me too as I was sent some copies of pictures taken by a
member of the group, showing me engaged in discussion with some of them.
This allowed the photographers to ‘create representations of self’ (Crang,
1997: 371) for the group, as a taste-culture focusing on high-cultural autho-
rial distinction. Capturing authors in conversation allowed the group to mark
themselves out as curators and possessors of ‘good taste’.
After the reading, the group was given the opportunity to buy some of
Morpurgo’s books and have them personally signed by him. This offered a
means of distinction over and above merely buying the book itself, as the
autographs provided a further means of appropriation, allowing the distance
between the tour group and Morpurgo to be diminished (cf. Rojek, 2001:
58). Meeting the author and getting a book signed by him offered the group
a form of cultural capital over and above that which they would gain by
merely reading the printed text. Moreover, the purchase of the books was dis-
sociated from commerce, as profits went not to Morpurgo but to his charity,
enabling his high-cultural construction to be maintained. By not seeking

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414 I N T E R N AT I O N A L journal of C U LT U R A L studies 11(4)

profit from his work in this instance, the author was marked as possessing
‘the ultimate values of “disinterestedness” through the denunciation of …
mercenary compromises’ (Bourdieu, 1993: 79).
In these exchanges, I am not seeking to naturalize a position extolling the
academic as superior cultural critic, nor am I arrogantly setting myself up as a
cultural arbiter of taste. However, my desire to speak to the group and my own
presentation of the events of this tour offers further proof that I had willingly
accepted the role of ‘expert’ granted to me by the group. Consequently, my
attempt to unmask the myth of Tintagel’s cultural status had seen me engaged
in the self-same myths I had sought to uncover. However, this also shows how
‘a weakness [of fieldwork] is not the possibility of total immersion, but a fail-
ure to acknowledge and critically (though not necessarily negatively) engage
with the range of possibilities of position, place and identity’ (Coffey, 1999: 36).
By being self-reflexive, and acknowledging my own role in the research, I was
able to discover how my status was ‘situated in existing cultural and structural
contexts’ (Coffey, 1999: 12). This tourist group’s tour was not merely about
seeing the Arthurian geographical sites, but about meeting people who served
to authenticate the places by means of an auratic talk or lecture.
In a world where tourist attractions have been democratized (see Urry,
2002: 4–7), for high-status subcultures to maintain their cultural distinction,
something extra is needed. These talks and lectures offer a means of appro-
priation, a shared knowledge that excludes the ‘everyday’ tourist from this
social status. Meanwhile, the talks act as a bonding tool, preserving the com-
munity as community. ‘Groupings of fans in celebrity culture can be regarded
as taste cultures, cultivating and refining standards of emulation and solidar-
ity in respect of the celebrity to whom they are attached’ (Rojek, 2001: 102).
Being self-reflexive enables us to ‘at once uncover common bonds and recog-
nize differences’ (Katz, 1996: 177), and enables the mechanisms that allowed
this group to function as a subculture to be uncovered. ‘The researcher is
bound to integrate into his model of reality used instead of setting himself up
as arbiter or as impartial observer’ (Bourdieu, 1988: 17), and by so doing I
was able to see how, much to my surprise, my fieldwork and
I were used and appropriated by the tourist group as a means of distinction.
Through the more ‘traditional’ ethnographic approaches of qualitative inter-
views and participant observation, it was possible to discern that my experi-
ence was not unique. This article has shown that, in analysing place and
tourist sites, it is often important to discuss not only how the cultural value
of the geographical site is used and appropriated, but also the techniques used
to construct that cultural value in the first instance.

Notes

1 The names of the tour operator, participants in the tour, and the tour name
itself have been changed to protect the participants’ anonymity.

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 Earl ● Literary tourism 415

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● BENJAMIN EARL lectures on the English and Popular Culture

undergraduate degree at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. His
principal research interests are tourism, pop music, the nature of
authorship, and appropriations of both high and popular culture. He is
writing a book, entitled Arthurian Myth Today: Quests for Popular Cultural
Value, for Manchester University Press. Address: 19 Hillside Court, Ty-Gwyn
Road, Penylan, Cardiff, CF23 5JA, Wales. [email: earlb@cardiff.ac.uk] ●

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